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Good News for the Home-Lovers 
of Valley Forge 



by the 



REV. W. HERBERT BURK. D. D. 

Rector of the Washington Memorial Chapel, Valley Forge. 



A sermon preached In the Washington Memorial Chapel, 
Sunday, December 22, 1918 






Copyright 1919, 
By W. Herbert Burk. 



vO)CI.A.3] 553 

MAY 17 19(9 



GOOD NEWS 

FOR THE 

HOME LOVERS OF VALLEY FORGE 



A sermon preached in the Washington Memorial 
Chapel, Valley Forge, on Sunday, December 22., 1918, by the 
Rev. W. Herbert Burk, D. D., rector. 

"There was no room for them." — St. Luke 2: 7. 

"There was no room for them." How these words have 
been on my mind' In the bustle of the day's work and in the 
stillness of the night they have come back to me again and 
again. I could not banish them from my thoughts, neither 
could I erase the picture from my mind. Try as I would I 
I could not free myself from their power. Elsewhere and 
under other circumstances I might have been able to set my- 
self free from their melancholy reiterations, but not in these 
December days upon the hills of Valley Forge. 

It is not my purpose to use the words as a text for a 
Christmas sermon, as I have done at other times in my min- 
istry, but to use them to-day as a text for a 'new message to 
you whose homes are here, whose interests are in this com- 
munity. If you have turned back to your Bibles to picture 
the conditions under which you have been living recently, 
you may have thought of these words, and you may have 
pictured the sad scene which they suggest. 

The pitiful picture of the homekss wanderers, homeless 
in the home of their great forefather David, homeless in the 
very town whch was to become a blessing to all the world 
through their presence — this is the thought which these 
words bring to us. But you and I can now understand the 
deep pathos of the picture. For that man and that woman 
\yith her unborn babe have stood for centuries, and will al- 
ways stand, for that most holy bond of fellowship which we 
call a family, and the royal throne of a family is and always 



will be a home. You have been using that blessed term with 
madness in these days, for here in Port Kennedy and Valley 
Forge you have hoard the death knell of your homes and the 
homes of your kindred and of your friends. As you have seen 
these deserted farm houses abotut us, as you have heard of 
the edict of devastation pronounced against others, you may 
have thought of those lines in Evangeline which describe Ar- 
cadia after its citizens were driven from their homes by a 
hostile power — 

"Waste are these pleasant farms, and the farmers 

forever departed ! 
Scattered like dust and leaves, when the mighty 

blasts of October 
Seize them, and whirl them aloft, and sprinkle them 

far o'er the ocean." 

God grant that these lines may never be true of Valley 
Forge, whose homes a hundred and forty years ago opened 
to welcome Washington and his homeless band of fugitives. 
The homes which sheltered those heroic men should always 
be inviolate, and around their hearthstones generation after 
generation, children should play without fear, and hear 
again and again from the lips of loving parents the story of 
how within those walls the leaders of the great American 
army, which fought for the freedom of the home, found not 
merely a shelter from the storm, a refuge from the bitter 
cold, but a real home. 

In part Longfellow's lines are true of Valley Forge. Al- 
ready homes are deserted. The blinds rattle with the passing 
winds, the gates creak upon their rusty hinges. No longer 
can one hear the cheerful farmland voices, the lowing herds, 
the bleating sheep, the garrulous barnyard fowls, or the 
barking of the faithful watchdog. These are silent now, and 
one hears only the honk of the tourist's horn or the rumble 
of the heavy freight trains, or the shrill factory whistles. 

The farmhouse stands emj^ly and silent — 

"A poor old farmhouse with its shingles broken and black — 

I suppose Fve passed it a hundred times, but I always stop 
for a minute 

And look at the house, the tragic house, the house with no- 
body in it. 



"I never have seen a haunted house, but I hear there are 
such things ; 

That they hold the talk of spirits, their mirth and sorrow- 
ings. 

I know ths house isn't haunted, and I wish it were, I do. 

For it wouldn't be so lonely, if it had a ghost or two. 

"But a house that has done what a house should do, a house 

that has sheltered life, 
That has put its loving wooden arms around a man and his 

wife, 
A house that has echoed a baby's laugh and held up his 

,stumbling feet, 
Is the saddest sight, when it's left alone^ that ever your eyes 

could meet. 
* * * * * * * * 

*T never go by the empty house without stopping and look- 
ing backj 
Yet it hurts me to look at the crumbling roof and the shut- 
ters fallen apart. 
For I can't help thinking the poor old house is a house with 
a broken heart." 

{^Joyce Kilmer^ 

But Valley Forge is not to become anothei Arcadia, a 
second New Forest. To-day I bring you the good news that 
the houses which line tliese ancient highways of the pion- 
eers, or cluster beneath the hills on whicli freedom-loving, 
home-defending patriots suffered and died, shall not fall in 
ruin. The Hon. John R. K. Scott has asked me to announce 
to the people of this community that no home need be sur- 
rendered, for the Valley Forge Park Commission has no in- 
tention to drive out any citizen, or to deprive any family of 
its home. If a house be for sale the state will purchase it, but 
it will not compel anyone to sell. He explains that the no- 
tices now being served are only to prevent sales to other 
parties. 

This is the good tidings I bring to you to-day, my fellow 
citizens, to free your minds from fear and to fill your hearts 
with gladness. For « ne, I am deeply grateful to the Commis- 



sion for what I believe is the first message ever sent by it to 
this community. I rejoice in the news not only because I 
consider it just to the people whose homes are here, but be- 
cause I consider the ruthless destructon of a home a sin 
against society and treason to the state. Sometimes pro- 
gress demands the destruction of a home, as when it stands 
in the way of some development necessary for the public 
good. Even then the hapless people are martyrs whose suf- 
ferings are beyond the paltry measure of gold. A railway or 
a new street often goes through broken hearts as well as 
through houses and gardens. For this, men have cared little, 
but I doubt if ever again we can be so callous. For how can 
we pity Belgiulm and France and have no pity for those Who 
are made homeless in America to save time or increase pro- 
fits? We have cursed the Hun because he was a ruthless 
home-deslroyer. If we were right, and I believe we were, be- 
neath that curse must fall all who needlessly and ruthlessly 
destroy homes, whether in Europe or in America. The old 
curse of Naboth's vineyard has not lost but gained in force 
with the advance of civilization, and to-day we know what it 
means as no generation has ever known it. In this time of 
quickened social feeling we know the sin denounced by the 
prophet Isaiah, when he cried, '"Woe unto them that join 
house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no place, 
that they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth!" 

Now you can understand why I rejoice in Mr, Scott's 
message, after I had watched the surveyors at work and read 
the notices served by the Commission. To destroy a few 
houses to add a few acres to the Valley Forge Park would be 
a social crime, especially as no historic purpose couid be 
gained by the devastation. For as a matter of fact it is folly to 
talk about "restoring Valley Forge." Tliat Valley Forge of 
Washington is gone forever. It ceased to exist when the first 
"improvement" was made. Otherwise I would have laid no 
stone of this chapel. To-day the Valley Forge of 1777- 1778 
can be recalled only by the strongest effort of imagination. 
It was gone even when Washington visited it a few short 
years after the Revolution, and no lavish expenditure of 



5 

money can ever bring it back. We can mark its tomb and 
garnish it, but it is gone never to return. 

To immolate hiuman homes upon its altar or to smear it 
with the tears of the sorrowing would be to defame the mem- 
ory of those home-loving patriots whose dreams around the 
camp-fires of Valley Forge were of home, sweet home, for as 
Longfellow has so beautifully said : 

''Each man's chimney is his Golden Milestone; 
Is the central point from w'hich he measures 

Every distance 
Through the gateways of the world around him. 

In his farthest wanderings still he sees it; 

Hears the talking flame, the answering niglit-wind, 

As he heard them 
When he sat with those who were, but are not. 

Happy he whom neither wealth nor fashion, 
Nor the march of the encroaching city 

Drives an exile 
From the hearth of his ancestral homestead. 

We may build more splendid habitations, 

Fill our rooms with paintings and with sculptures. 

But we cannot 
Buy with gold the old associations!" 

That is why the civilized world has been shocked at the 
devastation by the hellish Hun. We can rebuild the houses 
m Flanders field, but no government on earth can build a 
home. That can only be built when God and man and wo- 
man and child work together, for a home is earth's fairest 
growth, a people's ric'hest treasure, a nation's greatest 
power. It is the heart's truest sanctuary. It is the soul's 
first Paradise. 

You know this. You feel this. From it comes the joy 
of every wedding. The gifts, the music and the flowers are 
but the outward signs of humanity's gladness at the advent 
of another home. 



"O fortunate, O happy day, 

When a new household finds its place 
Among the myriad homes of earth, 

Like a new star just sprung- to birth, 

And rolled on its harmonious way 

Into the boundless realms of space!" 

Homes are sweet and holy places everywhere, but me- 
thinks there is no home so sweet or so good as the home in 
the village. Surely you know what I mean. You have felt 
the spell, as youi have come to a village at eventide. 

"From the hundred chimneys of the village, 
Like the Afreet in the Arabian story. 

Smoky columns 
Tower aloft into the air of amber. 

At the window winks the flickering firelight ; 
Here and there the lamps of evening glimmer, 

Social watch-fires 
Answering one another through the darkness." 

Happy the child whose home is in a village! Around 
it is God's wondrous world of nature, and it lives the ideal so- 
cial life when every joy and every sorrow, great or small, is 
borne in common. There the village church is the real social 
center, its communion a family in Christ Jesus. There ont 
hears the call to service and there opens before the child- 
eyes the world-wide vision. I would ask no greater boon 
for any child than the privilege of living in a village amid 
loving Christian neighbors, to carry forth into life those ex- 
periences and those feelings of which Bishop Grundtvig 
sings in his own sweet way : 

"Church-bell, lost in great and noisy city, 

Thou wert cast for towns where far and nigh 
Ajl can hear when'er a babe is weeping 
Or a mother sings her lullaby. 

When a child I lived near fields and forest. 
Like a heaven to me was Christmas morn. 
Like an angel's voice, glad tidings bringing, 
Told thy chimes of joy to mankind borne." 



With memories such as these, with the knowledge of 
how much I owe to the Httle village of my childhood, my 
heart goes out to the boys and girls of Valley Forge and 
Port Kennedy, and I rejoice for them to-day because they 
may still enjoy the privileges which are theirs above all other 
Americans, that they may grow up m an atmosphere of real 
patriotism which is the truiest self-sacrifice and the noblest 
social service. No one can foretell what these two villages 
may yet contribute to the Nation's glory or the world's bless^ 
ing, for out of all the names of "Who's Who in America" 85 
per cent, of those whose services entitled them to be enrolled 
came from the farms and villages and only 15 per cent, from 
the cities. 

One reason why the village is a better home for a child 
than a city is that it is made up so largely of homes in the 
midst of gardens. When I picture a happy child a garden is 
invariably the background, for it is the beautiful, happy en- 
vironment of childhood. To the child it is a playground, but 
to the parent it is a kingdom. As one English writer has ex- 
pressed it — "There is no love so great save that of a woman, 
as a man's love for his garden. Its charm is ever fresh wheil 
the sun shines brightly, or even in the depth of winter, for 
then it is the time for discussing possibilities, and the garden- 
er is planning, waiting and preparing" for the advent of spring 
and the joys of summer. It may not be a very elaborate 
garden ; but it is just the little bit of God's earth that is left 
to the tending of one man and his partner in life, a Paradise 
as b(eautiful as Eden." 

I doubt if any one ever found more pure delight in the 
Valley Forge Park than I have. No one could value it more 
highly for its historic associations or for its aesthetic influ- 
ences. One of the great pleasures of my life is to point out 
to others its scenic splendors and its sacred spots. If it must 
be extended to fifteen hundred acres or even to two thousand 
acres, the extension can be made without the sacrifice of a 
single home, and my hope is that it will be so developed by the 
sound judgment of the Valley Forge Park Commission, 
whose members are real hdme-lovers. 



8 

My message of good tidings comes from them and I re- 
joice because it means that there is to be room here for a 
state park and for the villages of Valley Forge and Port 
Kennedy — room for broad boulevards and little gardens — 
room for memorials of the past and homes of the present, — 
room for foxes of the field and birds of the air, buit better far, 
room for fathers and mothers and children. Yes, thank God, 
here at Valley Forge whose patriots made America the home 
for the weary home-seekers of the world, the old, sad message 
"There was no room," has given place to this message of 
joy: "There is room — room to live and love in homes of 
happiness," 

As a patriot I hope the state will not purchase a single 
property to rent, for with other students of rural life I believe 
the statement of Thomas Nixon Carver, "Next to war, pesti- 
lence, and famine, the worst thing that can happen to a rural 
community is absentee landlordism." That is what we would 
have with the state as owner. Agamst this evil we as Chris- 
tians and patriots must take a firm stand. Our national ex- 
istence is imperiled by it and the moral and spiritual life of 
our citizens is endangered by it. It has been the curse of 
Furope. It is fast becoming the curse of America, and al- 
most every decadent rural community can be traced to it. 

Finally let us co-operate with the commission, now that 
it is no longer to be a menace to the community. Let us see 
that the children of this neighborhood have that environment 
which shall foster the truest patriotism and the deepest reli- 
gion. Let us train them for citizenship in the great Republic 
and in the eternal Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ. Above 
all, my brethren, let us rate the home at its real value, and 
let each member of a family live as becomes on\e so richly 
olessed through the mercv and love of God. 



